The Waiting Game
by Advocata Diaboli
Summary: Yukina knows, and Hiei knows she knows, but no one's saying anything just yet.
1. Chapter 1

The Waiting Game  
by AdvocataDiaboli

Yukina knows, and Hiei knows she knows, but no one's saying anything just yet.

Disclaimer: It's their sandbox; I'm just playing in it.  
Warning: It isn't a focal point of the story, but I treat H/K as practically cannon, so it will come up.

Happy reading! Please review, even with criticism.

I'm almost positive she knows - my sister, that is. Yukina. She's not an idiot.

When you're searching for your long lost brother, and a mysterious demon shows up out of the blue to save you - the same height, same red eyes as yours, and not typically in the business of rescuing damsels in distress - it's hard not to connect the dots. And, while I may reject everything I've inherited from our mother's people, the resemblance to my ice maiden sister is unmistakable. Why she hasn't said anything - that, I can't explain.

And she is my sister, there is no doubt about that. Proud. Strong. Fiery, not like the brittle ice maidens of our homeland. Not helpless like the idiot humans seem to think... although she has little in the way of attack power, I am not so stupid as to measure strength by power alone. Sweet and innocent, unlike her brother, but not naive. She is everything I could have hoped for, if I was in the habit of hoping.

She is also a puzzle, one that has nagged at me for years. On the surface, just another simpering ice maiden, weak, lacking even the frosty hatred of her kin - my sister in name only. But beneath that she is hard like permafrost, refusing to give in to torture, or grief, or anger - refusing to hate even the bastards who tortured her. Brave and stubborn enough to leave her safe little island to find her brother; delicate enough to cry about dead birds. Familiar and entirely alien.

She confused me that day, the day we first met. I think I confused her as well.

I took to watching her... not that I had anything better to do while trapped in the human world. She spends her time doing menial chores for the old hag, sweeping and sewing and tending the garden. Every day, an hour before high noon, she sprinkles birdseed, and every seven days that human oaf trips up the temple stairs to see her. Kurama visits once or twice a month, and they hole themselves up in the kitchen or living area - probably for gossip, that prissy fox. It's all so sickeningly domestic of her, but at least she's safe.

Then one day, after I'd developed a routine of checking up on her every few days, she caught me... and when I say 'caught', I mean she froze the tree branch out from under my feet, landing me in a pile of leaves, and invited me in for lunch - smiling serenely the whole time. I was too shocked to refuse. We finished off a large fried fish, and chatted - chatted! - about the human world over a box of sweet frozen cream. After that, I became another of her regular visitors.

Like I said, there was not much else to do in the human world.

It took another month before I realized she knew. I had no intention of telling her, of course. But by then I'd gotten used to her company - her observations on the detective and his friends, the way she rolls her eyes when I am particularly rude, the intelligence with which she discusses medicine and cooking - and on rare occasions, her ability to insult someone without their notice. When we are around the detective and his team, her presence gives me the strange sensation of having someone guarding my back - an entirely unfamiliar feeling, outside of battle.

The amount of talking she does would normally have me summoning the darkness flame, except that she is my sister and I seem to have infinite patience when it comes to her. She usually has something interesting to say, anyway. Sometimes she offers a new story about the human world, or a tidbit from her life in the demon world - or comforting silence, especially on cold snowy days. On particularly warm days, she asks me polite questions about my life. When it rains, she sits on the porch and wonders out loud about her brother - what his life was like, where he grew up, what he would think of her.

On one such rainy evening, over a mug of heated chocolate, it occurred to me that she never wonders where her brother _is_. She asks me once a month, like clockwork, if I've found her brother yet - but on those cold wet days, when I take shelter under the temple eaves and listen to her guess at her brother's character, his favorite food, his joys and sorrows, or what hardships he might have suffered, she never asks 'where could he be?' Why should she, when she knows he's right in front of her?

The next time she asked me if I'd found her brother, the small curve of her lips looked almost smug.

Next chapter will be Yukina!

R&R!


	2. Chapter 2

The Waiting Game  
by AdvocataDiaboli

Yukina knows, and Hiei knows she knows, but no one's saying anything just yet.

Disclaimer: It's their sandbox; I'm just playing in it.

Happy reading! Please review, even with criticism.

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He knows I know.

It's like that silly game Kurama and Yusuke play to confuse Kazuma, telling him 'I know that you know that he doesn't know that I know that you know...' Soon I will be thinking 'does Hiei know that I know that he knows that I know he's my brother?'... and maybe then I will bang my head against the wall like poor Kazuma.

His eyes and his height are a dead giveaway, so much like my own. But I watch him, when I have the chance, and see more of myself in my brother - our mother's long fingers and delicate bone structure, the dark blushes that never belonged on an ice maiden's face, the restlessness and temper that set me apart from all my sisters and aunts.

I sometimes wish I had recognized him immediately, that I had looked up into his familiar eyes and cried 'brother, I've found you!' But it wasn't until later, a few long and confusing days after my rescue, that I had time to reflect on the pale demon who helped save me. By then, I had time to think, to realize that he must already know, and to wonder why he hadn't told me.

At the very first, I thought perhaps that I was the only one to see our relation. That idea was short lived, and I realized quickly that the rest of the team (except poor Kazuma) was in on the secret as well. Hiei must have threatened them not to share. But why?

For a short time I believed Hiei was ashamed to have me as his sister. He was confident and strong and even more powerful than I'd expected my brother to be, whereas I had been captured by humans and couldn't even keep myself from crying. I hated him for rejecting me, and I hated myself even more. Those days were spent locked up in my new bedroom in the temple, alternately crying and freeze-shattering my tear gems.

Kurama seemed to notice my malaise, and took to bringing me interesting human foods and gossip about my new friends. As a demon living in the human world, he understands me far better than Kazuma or any of the girls who try to include me in their lives. I feel that he may also have a vested interest in Hiei's affairs (or at least in those tear gems I'd been smashing). He assured me that Hiei is not the kind of person to hide his disgust, and that he would make it more than clear if he disliked me for any reason. It was also around this time that I noticed Hiei's energy signature fluttering by the temple every so often, as he stopped by to check on me. So after a few days of feeling sorry for myself, I decided enough was enough, and invited him in for lunch.

Perhaps, I thought to myself, Hiei liked me well enough, but wasn't interested in having a sister at all. Perhaps it was enough for him that I was alive - he didn't need the responsibility of a sister. Backed into a corner, I'm sure this is what he would say, but I don't believe it... not when he listens to my questions and one-sided conversations, not after the care he takes to keep me happy and safe, and certainly not after he spent last Tuesday helping me bake chocolate chip cookies. He even cooked one on top of his hand, showing off like Kazuma sometimes does for Shizuru.

Perhaps then he feels unworthy, the way I did when I first found out. Kurama certainly seems to think so, if I am interpreting his little hints correctly. I can only hope it isn't true - my questions have yet to evoke any response from Hiei one way or the other.

But I think there is also a plainer reason: Hiei simply does not know how to have a sister. From what he's told me - in grudging answer to questions and speculation about my brother - Hiei's life was a lonely one. I at least had my cousins, and the woman who took me in after mother's death. Growing up he had no adults to protect him, only a spattering of very unsavory friends - and no one even resembling a sibling. And now that he is not alone, he has no idea what to do about it - having a sister isn't something he's ever trained for.

In some ways, I am grateful that I did not recognize him the day we met. I've had a chance to spend time with Hiei, time to get to know him while we both ignore the obvious. When we first met there was only flesh and blood between us - we who spent our first nine months as nearly the same person, had been driven apart by so many years and so much distance. Now we've developed an understand of each other. We've shared stories about our lives, had little arguments - we even had a small food fight in Genkai's kitchen! And when he comes back to the human world to check up on me, he stops in for lunch and asks - in his own indirect way - how I've been. He is learning how to be a brother, and I a sister, without the pressure of admitting our relation.

Perhaps when he is comfortable in that role, he will say the words to me, and my dear brother will finally 'find' himself. I am willing to wait.

Next chapter will be Yusuke!

R&R!


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